I mainly work with copper making weathervanes and sculptures mostly 16 oz but I do use some 18 ga as well. What do you think of the plastic dies for this use. Also any pictures of the tool holder, I have some issues on my reciprocating machine,right to left alignment need to be able to adjust. I'm interested.
Thank You
Steve Colby

Steve, the thumbnail dies are bolted to a thin plate that has the square shank welded to it. There is no adjustment left and right on the die holder that Stan supplies. The dies have to be aligned properly to work. All alignment should be done in the lower machine tool holder.

If you are going to shrink steel you will need the steel dies. Stan sells the steel dies also.

I have not tried to shrink copper with the plastic dies but I would think that it would work fine until the copper work hardens and then you would have to anneal it to get additional shinking.

So I ended up getting the shrinking dies from Stan the exchange rate killed me ... And I was concerned that with our low dollar I was spending way to much on them BUT after they arrived and I used them I would happily pay it again ,they are just brilliant, things I was doing with the kick Shriner were taking 15 minutes or more of slow marked shrinking , I can get better results in one minute with no marks and I'm not balanced on one leg .
Like I said the price including the exchange rate was well worth it and I will buy more tooling off him later in the year
Wayne

I purchased a set of these a number of years ago and found them great on steel but could not get them to work on aluminium. When I questioned loren on the problem he said they did not work on aluminium. Just thought I would put it out there as at the time I was under the impression they worked on both metals and would like to hear if any others have overcome the problem. Thanks